How to fix too much water in wine?

Question

I am making wine per this recipe http://www.farminmypocket.co.uk/home-brewing/recipes-home-brewing/elderberry-wine-recipe

I quadrupled the quantities to give me 18L.

At the point where I am supposed to add sugar and top up to 18L (after a week of extraction), I made the mistake of topping up first, then realising I hadn't added the sugar! Then by the time the sugar was added there is now about 22L.

So obviously I have too much water in the wine. What do I do here (if anything). Will this be a problem? (Will my wine taste too weak?) And if so What can I do about it? The obvious answer is to get out and pick more berries, squeeze out their juice without any more water and throw it in. But is this a good course of action or will I wind up making it worse?

Edit

The specific gravity is 1.110 after a day of fermenting

Answer 1

It's hard to answer without knowing the initial gravity of the recipe to compare it with yours.

Adding water to any wine will dilute it, but it might not be too bad if the wine was strong to begin with. If your recipe produces a strong port-like wine, it might become more like a regular wine.

Try to taste it and figure out if its too watery or not. If it's too watery, you may try to fix it.

1. Adding sugar: this will add alcohol, but no fruit taste
2. Adding more fruit juice: will ferment and add taste and alcohol
3. Blending with another wine: might add alcohol and some taste
4. Keep it as it is: the wine might be good even if a bit weaker

It's your choice. If you add more fruit, it might be a good idea to wash or freeze the fruit to kill any bacteria, before crushing and adding it to the fermenter.

Sanitation is key at this point, whenever you add or mix anything to the fermenter, make sure to clean and sanitize all equipment that will come in contact with the wine and do not open the fermenter for too long to minimize exposition to air.